Of the many different knife sharpeners made available for household use, those made in accordance with U.S. Pat. No. 2,469,797 have had wide acceptance. That type of sharpener consists of an abrasive wheel and blade supporting means combined therewith to provide a unit, the blade supporting means having a surface against which one side of a blade is held at an angle such that the beveled edge of its other side then properly engages a side of the abrasive wheel with the unit rolling forwardly and rearwardly on a supporting surface as the knife is reciprocated.
Several advantages occur if such a sharpening unit is held captive by rotatably mounting it in a support with one such advantage being that sharpener may be provided with a removable guide enabling a scissors blade to be brought into and reciprocated in tangential engagement with the periphery of the abrasive wheel and thus sharpened with the unit held against rotating. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,648,414.